Auditory-Perceptual Judgment of Vocal Resonance in Carnatic Singers by Different Groups of Listeners

This study was aimed at evaluating the auditory perceptual judgments of vocal resonance by professional singers, speech-language pathologists (SLP) with singing training, and SLPs without singing training.

(a) To examine the auditory-perceptual judgments of the phonation samples of professional singers obtained before and after resonant voice therapy (RVT) by professional singers, SLPs with singing training, and SLPs without singing training. (b) To compare the agreement between the auditory-perceptual judgments of the phonation samples obtained before and after RVT by professional singers, SLPs with singing training, and SLPs without singing training METHOD: Three groups of judges formed the participants of the study: group A (professional singers), group B (SLPs with singing training), and group C (SLPs without singing training). The judges were instructed to evaluate the perceptual vocal resonance in the voice samples of two groups of trained Carnatic classical singers.Among these groups, One group received RVT training, and their voice samples were obtained before and after the training, while the other group acted as a control. An auditory perceptual 3-point rating scale was used to rate the vocal resonance. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses and inter-rater agreement tests were done to understand the auditory perceptual judgment of vocal resonance by the three groups of judges.

The results of the Wilcoxon signed rank test indicated that the post-training auditory perceptual ratings by group A (│Z│ = 2.66; P = 0.008) and group B (│Z│ = 2.36; P = 0.018) were significantly different from their pre-training perceptual rating scores. The post-training ratings by group C were not statistically different compared to their pre-training scores. Also, good agreement levels were found on the weighted Cohen's Kappa coefficient test performed on the judgments made by groups A and B.

The listeners compare the voice samples to their own internal representations of a voice which would exclusively depend on the experiences of the listeners. In that way, the perception of intricate voice features of singers, like vocal resonance, could be challenging for SLPs with no experience in singing. The results of this study propose specific training in auditory perceptual judgments for SLPs to ensure efficient and independent service delivery to elite vocal performers like singers.